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The herds rejoice-the valley's pride-
And flocks that crop the mountain's side,
Till autumn's joyous face appear,
To crown with plenty all the year.

O Thou, from whom all blessings flow,
Lord, teach our hearts thy love to know;
And may thy grace support us still,
Thine hand defend from every ill!

Miscellaneous.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION: EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE AMONG THE HEATHEN AND JEWS.-Even Romanists have confessed that this doctrine is a disadvantage to their missionaries among the heathen. Let us suppose that a Romish priest visits the South Sea Islands. At present many of these have just heard of the religion of Jesus, as taught from the Bible, and are hesitating about it. What they have heard of it is so pure, so simple, so reasonable, that they are on the point of embracing it. Nothing holds them back but a natural clinging to their ancient habits and superstitions. But now comes the priest, and tells them that when he has uttered a few words over the wafer, a miracle is performed. They see no miracle; they behold all as it was before: and yet they are told they must believe it as an essential part of Christianity. What must they now think of Christianity? In what a new light must it appear! how changed from what it was when they heard it from the lips of Protestant missionaries! If they are brought to think that the Scriptures command them to believe what their eyes, touch, and taste command them to deny, what danger must there be of their changing their mind concerning Christianity? "What better," they may say, "what more certain, is it than our old religion?" And when they are told to worship before the wafer (whatever attempt there may be to teach them that this differs from worshipping the wafer), will they not cry out, "Why, this is as bad as our old idolatry?" And so all hope of their conversion, or of one worth the name, at least, may be lost! We have applied this reasoning to the South Sea islanders, but how much more forcibly does it apply to the polished Hindoos, vast numbers of whom are now throwing off their ancient superstition, and are applying to European studies and philosophy! Of what immense importance is it that Christianity should come to them in a form that will bear the most rigorous examination of reason! Otherwise, will they not reject it as one of the forms of imposture, of which they will learn that there have been so many in the world? When they see the wafer carried in procession, and the Romanists falling down before it, will they not be apt to join Averroes, the Arabian philosopher, who, when he saw the same thing, cried out, "I have travelled over the world, and have found divers sects; but so sottish a sect or law I never found as is the sect of the Christians, because with their own teeth they devour their God whom they worship." This is similar to what the greatest of the Roman philosophers uttered hundreds of years before: when, speaking of the various shapes under which superstition and idolatry had existed in the world up to his time, Cicero says, "But was there ever any man so mad as to believe that which he eats to be God?"

Now, we wish it to be understood we are not defending the impressions we have described; we are only describing them. They will arise, whether we lament them, and condemn them, or not. Is it likely, we ask, that a doctrine can be true, which gives rise to such impressions, and hinders the propagation of that religion which is sent to be a blessing to the whole earth -out of the eight hundred millions of whose inhabitants, only two hundred millions have as yet ever heard of the name of Christ? When there is a choice

between the literal and figurative interpretation of Christ's words, and reason exercised on Scripture already inclines us to reject the literal, shall we not think it an additional inducement, when, by so doing, we facilitate the reception of Christianity to six hundred millions of our fellow-creatures? Lastly, what a stumbling-block is transubstantiation to the Jews! It seems almost impossible for the Romanists to convert the Jews; and so it has, in fact, been found to be. The practice of worshipping God "under the species" of the wafer (the words of the council of Trent) appears to them idolatry, and utterly irreconcilable with the law, not merely in its ceremonial parts, but in its everlasting spirit. The idea also of drinking blood literally, is what they cannot endure. As long, therefore, as Christianity comes to them hampered with this doctrine, it comes in vain-it can obtain no hearing. Till Protestants shall be fully awake to the duty of carrying their pure and reasonable form of Christianity to the Jews, there can be no hope that that most interesting people will be converted. It will be the glory of our reformed religion, when through its instrumentality, under the Divine blessing, "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" shall be gathered into the fold of Christ, and shall display that devotion in his cause which they have with unexampled, though mistaken nobleness, displayed in adhering to their law; and so, through the combined efforts of Jews and Christians, "the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in."-Rev. C. S. Bird.

SUNDAY DRESS AND APPEARANCE.-As the Christian religion is cheerful, and peaceful, and pure, so should every thing connected with it be of the same character. I never can help fancying that I see something of this character in the Sabbath of a country village, where religion prevails. The peaceful cheerfulness, however, which belongs to true religion, is widely different from the noisy mirth which belongs to which belongs to a Christian Sabbath, but it is a the careless and the profligate. There is a stillness happy stillness. You see, in the countenances of those you meet, an appearance of rest, of calmness, of peaceful cheerfulness. There is, also, in the cleanly Sabbath dress of English villagers, something like an emblem of the purity which belongs to that religion which is to be their guide at all times, but on the Sabbath is their more peculiar business and enjoyment. It is of great consequence to keep up the true character of this sacred day. Let no man, however, suppose that the mere Sunday dress, or the Sunday rest, or even the Sunday ordinances, will of themselves entitle him to be called a true Christian; but if they enable him, and if they invite others, to make this day a day of holy rest and of Christian improvement, how useful, how needful they may be! Is not a man's mind drawn away from every purpose of sabbatical rest, when he sees the inhabitants of a village without their Sabbath dress, and when he hears their noisy mirth expressing a feeling so different from Sabbath devotion? And, on the contrary, is he not forcibly led to join in Sabbath employments, when he sees others whose expression and appearance convey so much delight? Let there be a cleanliness of the person on the Sabbath morning, and let it be a token of that purity of mind which should belong to the Christian. A gaudy finery of dress and appearance and cleanliness do belong to it.-Bishop (Davys) of belongs not to the Christian Sabbath; but neatness Peterborough.

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ON THE ATONEMENT. BY THE REV. JOHN SPENCE, M.A. Rector of East Keal, Lincolnshire.

II.

Ar the conclusion of the former essay, the question was proposed-for building up the sincere Christian on his most holy faithwhence arose the necessity of atonement for sin? The answer to this question, it was remarked, was to be considered in a twofold point of view.

I. Atonement was necessary, because fallen man, having lost all moral power of self-recovery, could in no sense atone for himself; he could in no sense become his own saviour. In point of guilt, he had reduced himself to the state of fallen angels, "who kept not their first estate." Like them, he had voluntarily broken his Maker's righteous law, disbelieved his truth, rejected his sovereignty, stained his glory, and done dishonour to his holy name. Sin had" fixed a great and impassable gulf" between him and God; and beyond it stretched forth a land of thick darkness and eternal death. Nothing, therefore, could ultimately have prevented the execution of the law's threatened penalty, "dying thou shalt die," but the interposition of One who could pay that penalty in the sinner's behalf, "One mighty to save." Hence we see that "without shedding of blood there could have been no remission of sin;" no acquittal from guilt incurred; and no restoration to the forfeited favour and enjoyment of God. Without this wonderful provision of wisdom and mercy, sin must have terminated in the destruction of the sinner; God must have remained to him "a consuming fire." This reason, how

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ever, is by no means the only one to be assigned for the necessity of Christ dying for There is another reason, and a very conclusive one too, which many sincere believers in the atonement either inadvertently overlook, or very imperfectly understand. For,

II. Without this propitiatory sacrifice, the law "would not have been magnified and made honourable," its claims would not have been upheld, its unchanging truth would not have been vindicated; nor would the glory and the harmony of the Divine perfections have been inviolably secured, nor would their holy nature have been unfolded to the admiration and lasting love of angels and the whole redeemed and sanctified family of God.

By keeping this latter important truth in view, we shall be enabled to form a right conception of the sufferings of Jesus substituted in the place of sufferings due to us for our sins: in other words, by taking the revealed will of God for our guide, we shall see the necessity of Christ's atonement, if we duly consider what is meant by sin being called in Scripture "the transgression of the law" (1 John, iii. 4). Now, by the term law is clearly meant the moral law; for it is only by this law "that every mouth can be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God" (Rom. iii. 19). But the moral law, we are assured, is none other than a pure and bright transcript of the Divine mind, and is in itself, and in all its requirements, "holy, just, and good," and therefore calculated, in every respect, to promote the creature's greatest good. It was enacted to be a rule of duty, and a safeguard for securing the highest

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interests and happiness of all God's intelligent creatures in all parts of his universal empire. I say universal empire; for we are not to suppose, as is by many unthinkingly supposed, that we are the only moral responsible agents in the universe of God. Scripture at once corrects the mistake. It assures us, that this world of ours, peopled with human beings, is intimately connected with another world of bright and holy intelligences, who have never sinned, but who are still as much the subjects of moral government as ourselves. "To love the Lord our God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves," is an universal law, as binding in its obligations on the inhabitants of heaven and hell, as it is binding on the inhabitants of earth; for it would be equally absurd and monstrous to suppose, that the wilful rebellion of the creature, be he fallen man or fallen angel, can ever annihilate or even weaken the unrelinquished claims of the righteous Lawgiver, though that rebellion has morally disabled him, because he is voluntarily disinclined (the very essence and measure of his guilt) from yielding the homage and obedience required. Now sin is emphatically the transgression of this universal law; and its inflexible language to every subject placed under its authority is, "this do, and thou shalt live;" but in case of one single failure, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die :" "whosoever shall offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Had God, then, in the character of the supreme Governor of a whole moral universe, and the pledged guardian of the law which he himself had made, and made too for securing the happy order and highest welfare of all his rational and intelligent creation "in all places of his dominions;" had he, I repeat, connived at the transgression of it in the case of Adam, he would have substantially abrogated it; he would have looked on moral evil with indifference; he would have impeached the rectitude of his own moral government, and would have subverted its very foundations, by shewing himself regardless of maintaining the law's unchangeable sanctions and righteous authority. Such a procedure would have appeared an appalling mystery to the adoring "sanctities" of heaven, who had never transgressed the law of their Creator in one single instance: they would have stood amazed, and questioned the holiness, justice, and goodness of the law, had they beheld rebellious sinners translated from earth into their unspotted mansions, brightened with their glory, admitted to bear a part in their hallowed employments, and share in their blessedness, when the supreme Lawgiver had expressed no abhorrence of their

sins, and no determination to exact the penalty of disobedience, and vindicate the honour of his own righteousness and truth. Such a sight would have convulsed the thrones of angels and archangels, of cherubim and seraphim, and have sent a feeling of consternation and dismay through all their shining ranks and orders. On the contrary, having witnessed the infliction of the penalty of the law on their rebellious brethren, they doubtless must have expected to witness a similar infliction on rebellious man; for it must not be overlooked, that the glorious scheme of human redemption, "the manifold wisdom of God, was not then made known by (or through) the Church to these principalities and powers in heavenly places" (Eph. iii. 10). Here, then, we see the moral necessity of atonement for upholding the authority and maintaining the sanctions of moral government; we see how the holiness of God, which delights in contemplating the supreme good of all his intelligent creatures, and his justice, which is bound to maintain that good, required the atonement-required it, as the indispensable medium through which these Divine attributes could be vindicated, and illustriously displayed to God's "whole family in heaven and earth ;" and so displayed as to be in perfect harmony with the free gift of grace and salvation to the proud rebels of a distant revolted province of his dominions.

The atonement, then, under this scriptural view of it, is not one God appeasing another God, as its opponents are pleased either to misunderstand or misrepresent it; but it is what the inspired volume records to be the "manifested mystery of godliness," which, previous to the incarnation, "was hid in God from ages and from generations:" it is the development, when "the fulness of time was come," "of the eternal purpose, which the Father purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord;" and which purpose, when developed, exhibits, as already stated, the peculiar mode adopted by him, as the supreme Ruler of the moral universe, for upholding the rights of moral government; for maintaining the efficacy of law; for establishing its unaltered and unalterable sanctions in the esteem and reverence of all his obedient, intelligent creatures; and for securing to them its beneficial provisions and ends.

In its benignant aspect and influence on the eternal interests of our guilty, ruined race, emphatically called "the ministry of reconciliation," the atonement constitutes the adequate basis-the fundamental element, as it were of an administration by a Mediator, which, in pardoning sin, secures from impeachment all the divine attributes; an administration wherein " mercy and truth,

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uncompromised, can meet together, righteousness and peace can kiss each other;" wherein God the Father, as the supreme vindicator of law and the guardian of holiness, can be just," and yet, as "the God of all grace," can be "the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus;" in a word, can be "a just God, and yet a Saviour." It is this broad, revealed fact, which gives the atonement all its transcendent excellence and its peculiar glory, and invests it with all its melting love and attractive wonder.

Viewed in any other light, or in any other bearing, the atonement is not only unintelligible, but it is also indefensible, because wholly irreconcilable with Divine goodness and love; for it must be ever kept in mind, that it was made by the Son to the Father, not in order to produce a change in his nature and eternal purpose, which are clearly incapable of any change, but to produce a penitential, softening, purifying change in the hearts of sinners; not to excite pity in his breast, which was previously devoid of pity; not to render him merciful who was previously unmerciful; not to purchase forgiveness of him who was previously disinclined to forgive. This, it is to be lamented, is the too current popular notion of multitudes respecting the propitiatory death of Christ; and the notion also of many of God's regenerate children, who should have their spiritual senses exercised to discern and know better. The notion, however, be it adopted by whom it may, not only furnishes solid argument for the rejection of atonement altogether, but it has no ground of support whatever in the inspired Scriptures, when rightly understood and interpreted; for it is utterly inconsistent with, and highly derogatory to, the revealed character of God the Father, who is truly "a God of love," and whose compassions are infinite. "He delighteth in mercy" (Micah, vii. 13); "with him is plenteous redemption" (Ps. cxxx. 7); "he will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth;" and expressly declares, " as I live, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth" (Ezek. xviii. 32). If, therefore, sinners ultimately perish, the cause of their ruin is entirely their own wilful impenitence and unbelief. They are not constrained by any extrinsic influence, or secret decree, to do evil, nor are they restrained from doing good. They act in every instance freely and voluntarily, according to the prevailing convictions of their minds, and the preponderating inclination of their wills; and this is all that a moral, responsible, free agent can in equity claim of his Maker, as constituting the ground of his obligation to "love him with all his heart,

and soul, and mind;" grace he cannot claim; and hence, if sinners are saved, it is through God's sovereign, unmerited "kindness and love" (Tit. iii. 4), " to the praise of the glory of his grace" (Eph. i. 6). This grace prevents the sinner's "boasting" (Rom. iii. 27), that the pivot of his salvation is either "the will of the flesh or the will of man" (John, i. 13); but that the whole, in its commencement, in its progress, and in its completion, is "of God that sheweth mercy" (Rom. ix. 16).

In order, then, to elucidate more fully this delightful part of our subject, and chiefly with a desire to assist the plain readers of this essay in getting a deep, melting, heartaffecting view of their heavenly Father's love, and in banishing from their minds every chilling and hard thought of Him, as if he were a stern, vindictive, unrelenting God, clothed in frowns of terror and vengeance, and reluctant to pity, to pardon, and to save them, let it be further observed, that it is evident, from the recorded history of the fact, that the first sin of Adam, viewed exclusively as a personal offence committed against God the Father (personally considered as the Father), was pardoned as soon as it was committed; for it was He, the Father of grace and mercy, who gave our offending parents that first cheering, though mysterious promise, that "the seed of the woman should one day bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15). In the New Testament (not to swell this essay by adducing passages from the Old), this gracious promise is thus explicitly unfolded: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (he could not give more), that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (John, iii. 16, 17). And the same inspired writer, in his first epistle (iv. 9, 10), repeats the same sweet, consolatory truth, by declaring, "in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." And in order to shew that the predisposing motive of this exuberant grace originated solely in the bosom of the Father, he further adds, "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." From this testimony of Scripture, which need not be strengthened by additional quotations, it is as clear and decisive as language can express, that it was the Father's own infinite wisdom which devised the plan of salvation by a propitiatory sacrifice, and that it was his own infinite love which provided the endeared victim. He gave, at a cost ex

ceeding all computation, "his only begotten, his only beloved Son, and delivered him up for us all." That Son willingly co-operated with the Father in carrying the accomplishment of this eternal purpose of love into effect, and, "for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross;" endured, on that agonising tree of ignominious torture, sufferings substituted in the room of sufferings due to us; paid the full debt of our penalty,

and thus "redeemed us from the curse of the law," as a law of condemnation and death; but did not, by that act of redemption, cancel one jot of our binding obligation to obey it as the law of His moral empire over our hearts, and the rule of our duty and allegiance to Him as our King. By this "obedience unto death" "he opened a new and living way for us unto the throne of grace;" removed out of our approach to it every obstructing barrier and legal impediment, so that we, and every guilty sinner "of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation," may come boldly unto it, and may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. iv. 16).

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Thus, by the united act of the Father and the Son, united in counsel, in will, and in operation, we are redeemed, not from God, but to God, by the blood of "the Lamb;" and our moral restoration to the Divine image and favour, through the new-creating power of the Holy Spirit, is at once the purchase and the gift, and the brightest display of the Father's" abounding grace towards us."

Here our finite minds are lost, but delightfully lost, in contemplating "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of this love; for it is indeed a love" which passeth knowledge." It is the joyous song of the believer in his homeward journey to God"his everlasting light and glory;" it is the rapturous theme of angels, and of saints made perfect in holiness; it is the one great, absorbing wonder of an adoring universe, and it will be such for ever.

JANSENISM.-No. II. Doctrines, &c.

On the very day on which it pleased God to remove him from this scene of activity and usefulness, Jansenius finished that great work which had been traced out by himself and his friend M. de St. Cyran, and which had occupied him in its composition and arrangement for the long space of twenty years, during which period he had devoted the most unremitting attention to the study of the Fathers, and especially to the writings of St. Augustin. It is stated, he had ten times read through the whole of the writings of that Father, and thirty times carefully compared those parts of them relative to the Pelagian controversy. The work of Jansenius-which, to use the language of Mosheim, gave such a wound to the Romish Church, as neither the wisdom nor the power of its pontiffs will ever be able

to heal-is divided into three parts. The first contains a full explanation and exposition of the doctrines of upon, and his notions proved to be at once inconsistent Pelagius, in which the errors of his views are entered with revealed truth and with actual experience. The doctrine of divine grace is treated of in the second, in which all that St. Augustin wrote on the subject is arranged with great perspicuity. He maintains that all are born in sin, and by nature children of wrath; that all, as a natural consequence, are guilty before God, and remain under the power of sin, sitting in spiritual them spiritual light, and till they are called by his darkness, until the grace of the Lord Jesus bestows on

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gracious word from a state of spiritual death. arguments by which the doctrine of irresistible grace is maintained, are also considered at length. In the third part, the restoration of the soul to the favour and image of God is fully discussed. This portion of the work is regarded as the most elaborate, and testifies the extent of the author's learning; every sentence scattered throughout the works of Augustin, which at all bears upon the subject, being introduced.

It is a striking circumstance, that the mind of Jansenius seemed fully impressed that the publication of this work might lead to much bitter controversy, or even expose his friends to persecution. With his dying hand, therefore, he wrote to the pope (Urban VIII.), submitting the manuscript for his inspection; and authorising his holiness to alter or expunge any part of it. He thus writes with reference to the work:-"The expressions of St. Augustin are peculiarly profound. The various modes in which his writings have been interpreted prove at once the difficulty of the exposition, and the incompetence of the expositors. Whether I have been more fortunate, whether I speak according to truth, or whether I am deluded by my own conjectures, can only be known by infallible light, before which the illusive glare of false submitting my whole work to the test-to that true and splendour disappears-to that divine touch-stone, at whose touch every thing is ground to powder which possesses not the solidity of truth. I therefore now lay my work at the feet of your holiness; I submit its contents implicitly to your decision, approving, condemning, advancing, or retracting, whatever shall be prescribed by the thunder of the apostolic see."

Whatever may be men's opinions relative to the doctrines so firmly maintained by Jansenius; and admitting, which even his most determined opponents must admit, that he was an individual of the greatest assiduity and spirituality of mind, it is sad to think that he should thus prostrate himself at the papal footstool. His conduct indeed argues a great diffidence of his own powers, and an implicit reliance on the papal infallibility. Only half an hour before his death, he unreservedly abandoned himself and his work to the authority of the pontiff. His will was to the following effect:-"I feel" (with reference to the work), "that it would be difficult to alter any thing; yet if the Romish see should wish any thing to be altered, I am her obedient son: and to that Church in which I have always lived, even to this bed of death I will prove obedient. This is my last will. Done 6th of May, 1638."

Immediately on the death of Jansenius, the Jesuits endeavoured, by every method, to suppress the work, to the doctrinal statements of which they were in many instances vehemently opposed. The old disputes between them and the Dominicans, respecting the doctrines of grace, seemed to be revived with fresh ardour; and they called all their subtlety into exercise to prevent the writings of Jansenius getting abroad. "No incident," says Mosheim, "could be more unfavourable to the cause of the Jesuits, and the progress of their religious system, than the publication of this book; for as the doctrine of Augustin differed very little from that of the Dominicans; as it was held

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